


Eternal Bonds

by wolfdancer333



Category: Bleach
Genre: Adultery, Canon Compliant, F/M, Fate Worse Than Death, Fix-It of Sorts, I Will Go Down With This Ship, IchiRuki Week, Mild Smut, OTP Feels, Post-Chapter 686: Death & Strawberry, Red String of Fate
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-05
Updated: 2018-08-05
Packaged: 2019-06-22 11:18:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,876
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15580797
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/wolfdancer333/pseuds/wolfdancer333
Summary: Rukia's thoughts as she deals with the aftermath of Yhwach's desired future and the broken, tangled mess he left behind in his wake. As the years - 10 years, to be exact - drag on, she begins to see just how cruel Fate truly is.





	Eternal Bonds

**Author's Note:**

> Well......This is not what I had intended for this fic. AT ALL. Fair warning: very very light smut (you may have to squint really) and lots of angst. I will just state that though this is canon compliant, Ichiruki is my canon, my otp, my ship. Sail on, Ichiruki!

[Based loosely on this prompt off Tumblr:  
I: “Hey…don’t go, okay?”  
R: “Why not?”  
I: “Because you’re my best friend…and I don’t really want to lose you.”]  
Ichiruki – Bleach – Monthly Challenge – Week 2, Day 1  
Break-Ups and Make-Ups

How do you fix something that is broken? Glue it back? Weld it? Stitches? Is there even such a thing as ‘irreparable’? Well, the human heart seemed pretty fragile and she had never known just how much it could be broken until the day she stumbled into Kurosaki, Ichigo’s life. That one fateful moment of phasing through his wall changed both of them irreversibly. The red string that had connected them had weaved and twisted, coiling tighter around them. There was one point in Kuchiki, Rukia’s life where she had thought that thread could never be broken.

It had. It had been severed 10 years ago. It wasn’t a clean cut. At the announcement of Ichigo’s engagement, her heart had shattered and it had been Byakuya who had picked up the pieces. She had fought him and Renji to try and go see Ichigo, open a Senkaimon and say fuck it all. She had just _needed_ to see him, reassure herself that the red string was still there. Love was a cold blizzard perpetually blowing inside her soul, ice flowing through her veins instead of warm, red blood. Once, she had loved red and now she hated it. It reminded her too much of what she could never have, of what could have been. 

By the time news reached of Kazui’s birth, she had given in and fallen into Renji’s arms, bearing Ichika the same day. Funny their children had the same birthday, almost like Fate was screaming at them that it never ended. Their love would live through their children, Death and Strawberry, tangled and twisted and oh so cold. It wasn’t but a few years later, when both children were 5, that a Senkaimon was opened and Karakura was safe to visit. At first, she had hesitated and denied any reason to visit, ignoring the understandingly sorrowful look Renji sent her. 

She didn’t love him, as cruel as it sounded. What was worse was that _he_ knew it but accepted the table scraps she threw at him anyway. Ichika was not born of love, not on Rukia’s part. She couldn’t love with a heart she didn’t have and it had never belonged to Renji. The night they had had sex still echoed in her mind, the night Ichika had been conceived. Renji was a passionate and rough lover, pouring his entire being – as he did everything else, the buffoon – into her as if that was enough to make her return his affection.

When the blinding white of her orgasm wrapped around her, she had cried. Her heart had ached for a man she had to let go of, a man whose name she had uttered moments before as her release had slammed into her. She cried and wailed and out of her mouth poured it all. The questions asked to a quiet room in the dead of night, Renji silent as she begged him to tell her why it had ended, why he had moved on. She wanted an explanation for how she wasn’t good enough and what had happened between them. There were no answers he could have given and he didn’t try. Instead, Renji simply held her close as she cried, shouted, begged, and screamed. 

She had thought the stupid string broken then. That night while Renji lie snoring beside her, the blankets shifted half off his body and red hair framing his scarred body, Rukia had honestly thought she could love him. The light of the half moon had fallen through her open shoji door that led to the Kuchiki gardens, splaying across Renji’s sturdy chest, his toned abs, and the shoulders that would make any woman swoon. His tattoo's were a dark, inky black against his white skin and the scattered scars reminded her just what he was willing to do for her.

She had stared down at him in the moonlight and thought she could love him, entertained the idea that maybe she could forget orange spiky hair that was as bright as the Sun. Hoping that Renji’s roughness could erase the gentleness of Ichigo from her mind, from her heart, tear the quincy-shinigami from her _soul_. It had proved fruitless. The longer she stared at Renji, the more she saw Ichigo until her eyes were stinging with hot tears and suddenly his snoring was too loud, his hair too red. Escaping from the bed, she grabbed her white yukata from the floor and threw it on, hurrying out the shoji and into the Gardens. 

The sound of fish splashing and plopping in the small ponds made the pounding of her heart thump into her ears. She held her arms around herself as she stared up at the half moon, it’s bright light almost eclipsed by the darkness. The cicada’s buzzed by the small trees as the wet, cold ground soaked into her bare feet. The light of the moon that fell on her face, tilted to the sky, was sharp and cold. Icy fingers caressed her cheeks and her heart ached painfully when all she wanted was to feel the warmth of the Sun. Unable to stop the muffled sob, she buried her head in her hands and it took all her power as a Captain of the 13th Squad, of a Kuchiki Lady, all her power as a shinigami to not fall to her knees.

She wept quietly in the cold light of a harsh moon being swallowed by darkness, the night and all it’s sounds caressing her in a music so haunting she almost turned back and returned to her bed with Renji. She should be there now, sleeping next to the man she would marry, the man she thought she could love. As the last tear fell, when Rukia lifted her head there was nothing but ice in her violet blue gaze, as dark as the sky above her with no stars to light up the emptiness of her violet orbs. Straightening her spine and squaring her shoulders, she went to turn when something fluttered in her peripheral vision.

Turning her head she did fall to her knees then, violets wide and mouth parted as her hands rose to her lips to keep from uttering a sound. Darkness curled around her heart, the ache of heartbreak and loss eating at her. The small red organ keeping her alive thumped painfully as her chest grew tight. She wanted to deny it, pretend she hadn’t seen it or what it meant, but the moon was cruel. The white light fell on the fluttering, dancing red ribbon and it shimmered with an ethereal glow. It was blood red and thin, almost like a string and a small strip of silk. It caught the light like silk, glittering like rainbow diamonds in the light of the moon. It was surrounded by a white glow she had never seen before, transparent and shimmering like sand. 

The Red String of Fate danced to a rhythm she couldn’t see, twisting and fluttering in an unknown breeze. The end of it was frayed, tinged black almost like it had been burned. It was jagged and torn and she followed from the end down, down, down –

It ended, curled and tied tight, around her wrist and without thinking, she looked back at the end of the String of Fate with awe and lifted a hand. As soon as her fingertips grazed the torn edges, she succumbed to a vision that left her head snapping backwards, tilted to the sad, pitiful gaze of the moon. She watched the torn edge of her Fate glide to meet another Red String of Fate exactly like her own: blood red, glowing, and torn at the end. The two strings twined together and Rukia had looked down, following the second String.

Her breath hitched and her stomach flipped. There he was, orange hair glowing from a window in a room she didn’t recognize. His single bed had been replaced by a Queen, his desk was there on the opposite wall, and she refused to look towards the closet, feeling tears sting her eyes at the thought of even looking at it. Ichigo had ruined closets for her. But it was the scene below her that proved what she had always known: she could never love Renji the way she loved Ichigo. The moon fell on his cut and tamed hair, no longer the spiky mess his teenage self had worn. 

His head was tilted slightly, brown eyes softened over the years and gazing out the window at the half full moon. It’s light sunk into his tanned skin, dancing across his cheekbones and that firm jaw she remembered. His frown lines had faded, his eyes softened at the corners. His hands were behind his head as he drowned in the white light that enveloped him. The blanket was shoved to his waist, baring his chest to her and she found her gaze tracing his chest as she’d done Renji. Except the heat burned in her belly with Ichigo was a blazing Black Sun that left tendrils of dark desire and want coursing through her veins.

Suddenly she was not made of ice but fire and like the poem she had learned in Karakura High, either would be the end of her and she would be fine as long as it ended with Ichigo. His chest was scarred but tanned, toned arms behind his head. His abs were tight and firm and she wanted to rip the blanket off his body to see what lied beneath. She froze when she saw that red dancing in her vision. She followed their entwined ends to see that the other String was wrapped firmly around Ichigo’s own thick wrist. Her heart stuttered at the implications, at the soft, yearning look in his brown gaze. His eyes looked ready to devour the White Moon if only to hold onto her light and a sharp cry wrung from her pink lips at the sight.

Falling to her knees she cried, tears clogging her vision as she watched the scene unfold. Almost as if he could hear her, feel her pain, his brown pools – oh how she loved them and the way they would soften when they had looked at her – looking at her. She fancied he could see her but she knew by the way his jaw tightened and brown faded into almost black that he realized she wasn’t really there. 

“Mmm, Ichigo.”

The small, muffled voice made them both jump for different reasons. Startled, almost as if he had forgotten there was a woman next to him, Ichigo looked down at the long orange hair that fell over a small body with a bountiful chest and wide hips. She was smiling, face cherubic and calm, never knowing that she had a hand over the heart that Rukia wished she owned. Her tears stopped but the pain in her chest was eternal when she saw him lean down and kiss the top of the head of Inoue, Orihime.

It was his words that he whispered, broken hearted and defeated, that shattered what was left of Rukia’s soul. “You deserve a man that will love you the way I love her. It ends tonight, Orihime.”

She gasped when suddenly she was no longer seeing Ichigo and _oh gods, how could it be Orihime, how could she hate her –_ Her hands fell to the cold, hard ground as she dug her fingers into the dirt ignoring the sting of pain. She was bent towards the ground on her knees, forehead touching the ground between her dug-in fingers as she wept once more, eyes burning and throat clogged with a tight knot. The String of Fate was gone and as if to mock her, a cloud brushed over the moon, blocking it’s light. Shrouded in the darkness of the Kuchiki Gardens, Rukia lost what was left her heart.

Fate was cruel. Had there ever been a time for her and Ichigo, had this always been the end for them? The most cruel was the fact that she knew it _wasn’t_ but there was nothing she could do to change it. Fate had broken them up and they were left with the shattered husk of a life they were forced to live, a path they were chained to walk. As the night wore on, her tears trickled to a stop as she stared blankly at the cold ground. Mind numb, body cold, and emotions blank she padded like a ghost to a pillar holding up the engawa.

Turning slowly, she sat, her knees huddled beneath her and hands placed in her lap like the Kuchiki Lady she was. Her violet orbs were a hazy dark cloud as she stared at the Garden, empty and blank, mouth parted as if to whisper the sinful name lodged in her heart. She sat there until the moon had set and the sun had begun to crest over the Manor. She was found by Renji who only tossed a blanket over her shoulders, standing silent beside her in his own yukata. They watched the sun rise together as Rukia vowed to play her role. A broken smile crossed her lips. She could pretend, she could love Renji, she could forget Ichigo and she could move on.

It was a lie but it was all she had.

When Ichika was born and Rukia held her daughter in her arms, she felt a sense of pride. She was now a mother: a duty to fulfil to keep her thoughts off of the man that haunted her. The moment Ichika opened those large, expressive pools it took everything in her not to cry. Renji assured her she had done great and he was ecstatic, not questioning why she passed the infant to him so quickly. But how could she explain her disappointment that Ichika had Renji’s eyes and not Ichigo’s? How could she explain that during her labor – a hard and gruelling process in which Byakuya had informed her they nearly lost her – she had a forbidden thought: if she couldn’t have Ichigo, she could give a piece of him to her daughter.

Thus, Abarai Ichika was born into the world at the exact same time and date of a newborn infant in Karakura Town aptly named Kurosaki Kazui. The Red String of Fate, twined around the two parents – broken a part for many months now, always reaching for the other and yearning to entwine with the other’s soul – released two needle thin strings that wrapped around Kazui’s wiggling wrist and Ichika’s still thin one. Like their parents, Fated from the start. Rukia had never seen the thread again and she ignored the pull of it, resisting it’s call.

Before she knew it, 5 years had passed and her red haired daughter – so much like her father that it made Rukia’s heart ache bitterly – stood holding her and Renji’s hands as they watched the shoji of the Senkaimon slide open. A bright, white light shone out at them and Renji bent to Ichika’s level. Whispering something in her ear, the little girl suddenly took off like a bullet towards the Kuchiki Manor, her shunpo strong and quick. She had lightning feet but Renji’s recklessness, something Rukia often reminded him in bitter spats when their daughter was asleep and night had fallen. Renji loved her and she loved him but they both knew the truth. 

And when night would fall was when Rukia would reveal everything in her heart to the man who loved her, hoping if she broke his heart enough it would look like her own. Steadfast and stubborn he would wait her out, let her rage, let her cry, and then he would comfort her. Since Ichika’s birth, they had not had sex again – it could never be making love to her and he knew that, too – and he never pressed her for more than she was willing to give. She hated him for it. 

She looked over at him, mouth a thin line. Looking back at the girl she used to be, she reflected that same girl now as a woman: a shell, a broken shattered girl lost behind violet orbs. It had been so long since she had genuinely smiled that Byakuya had claimed he smiled more than her. Unable to deny it, the bitterness in her grew. 

It didn’t take long before Renji met her gaze, his own soft but firm. He was smiling and she felt her anger bristle at the look he was giving her. She wasn’t fucking made of glass! “What?”

Ignoring the sharp snap, his lips curled into a sad smile, hands in the pockets of his hakama. “Ya don’t have to do this, Rukia.”

Acid pain bubbled in her gut as she clenched her fists and looked away, her long black hair – so long that she wondered what _he_ would think – twisting behind her. She folded her arms over her chest and stared at the light of the Senkaimon as it blinded her, reminding her of the facade, the pretend game she was to play. “Yes, I do.”

He didn’t say anything at first but when he did speak, right before their daughter barrelled into his legs, his voice was resigned. “Then why do you look so dead?”

She wanted to shout that she was dead, moron! She was a shinigami, she was Death itself! The curses and shouts died on her tongue when he lifted Ichika into his arms, settling her atop his shoulders. Gripping the red haired spiky ponytail – a complete replica of it on her own head – she squealed as he jumped through the light, leaving Rukia behind. She stood there in her haori and her hakama, white Captain’s robe trailing behind her, and wondered how easy it would be to walk away. She could walk away, pretend she had missed the gathering so she wouldn’t have to break her heart all over again. 

Just a peek, that’s all. Reassuring herself, she only wanted a glimpse, she jumped through the Senkaimon, letting it’s light engulf her. Reappearing on the other side her heart flew into her throat as she floated above Karakura Town. Nostalgia overwhelmed her, swirling in her chest in a bittersweet pain that was both sharp and gentle. The buildings were all the same, people milling about and oblivious to the shinigami who hovered above them. Vaguely she heard the Senkaimon slip closed behind her but she paid it no mind, violet-blue orbs falling to the one house she would know even if she were blind. 

Without his reiatsu, she still knew he was there, could feel it deep in her soul. It was in the distance, Kurosaki Clinic, and every inch of her body, every molecule, every pore of her skin and pump of her blood, demanded she go there _now_ , right now…..! Sharply, she turned away, gasping for breath and trying to ignore the pain in her chest calling, screaming, begging for her to find him and seek him out. Instead she followed the strong reiatsu of her husband and the small thrum of her daughter. 

She landed on her zori outside of Urahara’s shop. The tall, geta and hat wearing man was speaking to her husband in low tones but stopped, gaze flicking to her. The feeling of knowing what they were discussing made her blood run hot as she approached. A giggle and then Ichika had her small arms around Rukia’s leg. She looked at her daughter’s spiky red hair and when the sun hit it just right, she could almost see it as orange. Her heart hollowed out as she looked up and met Kisuke’s sympathetic and knowing look. Even though he was hidden by the shadows of his white and green hat, she could feel the look as if it was branded into her skin. 

Everyone knew and sometimes, she wondered if Ichigo himself did. The thought kept her up for many nights. If he knew, then, he had chosen Orihime. But if he truly didn’t know, then…..Then what? She couldn’t say her feelings now, it was too late. Fate had broken them apart, thrust them into a horrible reality. She wondered, sometimes, in the night and watching the moon be eclipsed by the darkness, if Yhwach had won anyway. The fear of his future, of what he could do and his parting words, left her mouth bitter and heart empty. The bastard had won in the end regardless, all of them helpless to the future he had wrought upon them.

They were forced to live the path he had set for them, the future he had predicted lingering in all of their minds. Butterflies flitted in her stomach as, finally, she stared up at the Kurosaki Clinic sign. For the first time in years, her lips curled the slightest bit. It was small and broken but it was a smile. Stepping up to the door and ringing the bell made her palms sweat and her heart thump erratically in her chest. This was it. All the pain, all the bitterness, all the tears, their Fate…..This is what was left. The moment the glass door slid open, Rukia’s heart stopped. 

His hair was shorter than the time she had seen him that moonlit night. He had grown, his face growing into his bone structure. Their eyes met and everything around her froze. Everything faded as violet met brown. Every moment, every memory, every word, every emotion flew through that gaze between them, thick and strong. Her life played out, breathlessly, in the reflection of his soft brown eyes. Her heart was still not beating, her blood was frozen in time, in this moment with Ichigo, the moment she had longed for all those years. 

He uttered a single word and time resumed, emotions snapped back into place, her heart started beating, and the last 10 years – the bitterness, the ache, the longing, the yearning, and the pain – faded in the wake of this one single moment, in this one single word: “Yo.”

The last ten years faded away and she didn’t care that she was married with a child or that they had went their separate ways. Her lips curled without abandon into a warm, bright smile as a light heat bloomed in her chest. “Hey.”

She lost sight of Ichika watching the broad planes of Ichigo’s back as he moved, his orange hair still as bright and soft as it looked when he was a teen and saving the world. The familiar teasing banter welled up between them and finally, she felt like herself, she felt like Rukia. Only with Ichigo could she shine. Without the Sun, there is no Moon. A soft, gentle warmth swelled in her bosom and spread through her veins as she saw all the old faces she remembered, her eyes prickling with tears she fought to keep at bay. Karin and Yuzu had grown so much, it made a pang of regret swirl into her stomach. 

And when Ichigo asked, casually as if he wasn’t affected at all by the fact she had a child, where Ichika was, she couldn’t help but brag. As if bragging about Ichika making Gotei Apprentice was more important than where the girl had actually wandered off to. Her gaze never wandered to the woman standing in the kitchen doorway, afraid to meet Orihime’s eyes in case the woman could see the emotions she tried hard to bury. She didn’t want to see the woman who had everything she wanted, she didn’t want to see the happiness that she craved written on someone else’s face.

Mostly, she wanted to avoid seeing the way Orihime would lovingly glance at Ichigo as if he put the Sun in the sky. She thought the same but didn’t want to see another woman, even if it was Orihime, wear that very expression. And when Ichigo got in her face, shouting at her and berating her, she leaned up just an inch closer, her own words ringing through the room of laughter that their fights usually sparked. Something swelled between them and maybe that was why he said it or maybe he had missed her, too, lonely and awake at night. 

When the word left his mouth, their eyes met as a twisted sombreness flooded brown and violet. It was a word they had come to know, something between her and Ichigo, but now it carried a different meaning. It hung off his lips and pierced her heart. “Shut up, midget!”

Ten years later and the endearment – for that was exactly what it was – still rolled off his tongue like it was meant to. Rukia realized how cruel Fate was that day when Orihime had approached, leaning up to kiss Ichigo on his lips, lips Rukia had debated kissing moments before. She turned her attention to Chad’s fight, feeling Renji lay a comforting hand on her shoulder. This was the end of Ichigo and Rukia.

At least, she had thought it was. Now, she knew it wasn’t. The cruelty of the Fate they had been dealt had not truly struck either of them until this night. It had started out innocently enough. Renji had a guys trip planned with a couple of other lieutenants, leaving Ichika with Byakuya who had offered to watch his favourite niece. Bored and lonely, feeling more like herself than the years before, she decided to do something risky. Sending out a Jigokuchō, she opened the Senkaimon and flew through with her heart as light as the black butterfly that fluttered with her. 

Falling through the night sky above Karakura made her grin and Rukia felt it clearly: her String of Fate pulsing, pulling and calling out to the one person she didn’t know if she should see. Swallowing past the fear, she headed towards the red ribbon twisting frantically in the distance. Her heart thumped painfully in her chest at the way the String of Fate stretched and pulled, trying to reach her and tangle with it’s torn, jagged other half. Refusing and ignoring the implications of that entire thought process, she landed at the front door of a two story, modern home. A light was on in the living room, glaring out from between two white curtains.

Heart pounding, she raised her hand to knock but never got the chance. The door flew open and – was it always going to be like this; painfully breathless? – her breath hitched, body freezing at the tall man that greeted her. He was winded and staring down at her with wide brown eyes, the door clutched in one of his large palms. For a long, quiet moment all they did was stare at each other in a mute silence. That was all it took before her String reached Ichigo’s and then the red ribbon, silky and bright, was whole. The ribbon twisted and danced beneath the moonless night, connected, a bond unbreakable. 

Her throat was dry, tight, and she found it hard to breath as tears tickled the backs of her eyes. Her gut clenched in pain sharply and she parted her lips, unsure if she wanted breath or to speak, but she never got the chance. Oh Gods how she missed that scowl. His lips twisted into a painful grimace, a scowl, as his brown orbs darkened. He reached with his free hand and grabbed the hand she held in the air poised to knock, jerking her forward. She stumbled in with a squeak, his hand holding the door slamming it closed. 

A heat flared between them, building in her belly and between her legs. Panting from the thick, heavy desire hanging over her, she lifted her head to tell him she had to go before things spiralled out of her control. He was never one to let her run. His lips slammed into hers and suddenly, 10 years disappeared in the wake of nightly touches, rough kisses, whispered words, and the cries, the grunts, the moans and growls of their bodies. The slick sweat and the wetness of their bodies did nothing to damper the building fire between their skin.

The darkness of the room fell over them as – at round 3 she lost count – Rukia, wet and slick and exhausted, fell atop Ichigo’s heaving chest. She breathed rapidly, heart thudding, as the tall man lifted an arm, his hand falling on her lower back and rubbing circles with his thumb into the tender flesh. His other raised to tangle in her long, black tresses. A bitter ache sparked in her heart as she closed her sinfully dark orbs, raising her hands in Ichigo’s strong hold to his chest. Her forehead was above his heart and she could feel the pounding of it against her flesh. 

The words tumbled out before she could stop them in her sated state. “Where are Orihime and Kazui?”

He tensed beneath her, his thumb halting in it’s movements, his cock twitching inside of her. She groaned in tired need at the feeling, her own body responding with a tight coil of wet heat that clamped back. His firm legs grew taut with the struggle not to thrust into her tight heat – was this round 7 they were about to start? – as the hand in her hair moved to her upper back. He pressed her into him, holding her. Her breasts pressed into the hard planes of Ichigo’s chest and her shoulders tensed, not ready for the night to end. She wanted more of him, she wanted this for more than a night, wanted it to mean more than just sex. 

Remembering the whispered words was hard, most of them said in passion and desire, wants and needs that had them both crying out. Just when she thought he wouldn’t answer, his voice rumbled through his chest and into the heavy, sex laden room. 

“She’s out with Tatsuki for girls night or somethin’. Kazui’s with my old man.”

She nodded, her body loosening and Ichigo groaned above her. His next words were said between gritted teeth, a growl vibrating in his chest as his whole body tensed. “Damn it, midget, I can’t get enough of you.”

This time, there was no clawing, no biting, no growls or rough, hard thrusts. This time, he was gentle and slow. This time he looked into her eyes the entire time, not letting her look away even when her violets welled with tears. She watched his eyes as he thrust gently into her, hands cupping her jaw to keep her looking at him as her hands clutched at his back as if he was the only thing holding her to Earth. A hot, tight coil built inside of her at the slow pace of his thrusts, crawling and tingling through her body as she hoarsely panted, “I-Ichigo, I’m…..”

And then she was flying. She threw her head back as stars and a bright, white light blinded her, wrapping her in a soft, warm blanket of bliss and pleasure that had her toes curling and her back arching. She felt his thrusts stutter a moment before he dropped his head to her shoulder, his hips grinding into hers one last time before she felt his hard cock twitch and then her pulsing walls were drenched in the hot, sticky wetness of his release. 

But it was what he moaned in her shoulder at the height of his pleasure that drove her to tears. “Rukia…...”

That was making love. That was not sex – the other however many rounds was _definitely_ hard, rough sex – but instead the sensual act of two souls becoming one, of Fate, finally, being kind. His hot breath wafted over her neck as he took in large breaths of air. She didn’t realize she was trembling until Ichigo pulled out of her – she tried hard not to blush at the slick, wet sound of him sliding out – and just pulled her into the tightest hug he had ever given her. He didn’t move, his hard body engulfing every bit of her soft flesh. 

His arms held her tight, pressing her into his chest and then she wasn’t able to hold back any more. Tears and sobs burst from her in a torrent of emotion, her heart bursting with love and pain. Ichigo only held her tighter until she felt the tension in his muscles as he buried his head in the crook of her neck. His lips left little, soft kisses against her skin in the darkness of the night as he shushed her quietly, gently. He held her tight but spoke to her softly, her cries and her tears leaving behind a painful ache in their wake. 

When he spoke, she nearly felt her heart burst at the wistfully sad longing in his voice. “Hey…..Let’s run away together, you and me. Anywhere, we’ll go anywhere. Just…...Don’t leave.”

The words broke her heart because as much as she wanted to, dreamed about, leave with Ichigo, she _couldn’t_. She didn’t love Renji the way he wanted, she loved Ichika but not like a mother should, but…..They had responsibilities, lives, and Fate was cruel because it was way too late. “Ichigo…...You know I can’t…...Why…?”

She hesitated to ask, teetering on the edge of what could be and the reality of their world. Like he had always done, he turned her entire world upside down as she fell off the precipice of the cliff toward the dark what could be ravine. “Because, midget, you’re-” His voice broke and she reached her arms out of his crushing hold on her to pull him in as close as she could. “You’re my best friend…...And I don’t want to lose you.”

She felt the words he didn't say in the way he held her, the way his lips danced over her neck, and the way he whispered everything he should have said all those years ago. His voice broke and cracked as he rambled on, his speech getting slower and more muffled the longer he mumbled into the crook of her neck. Not once did he say he loved her.

But he didn't need to when she heard it anyway.

She held him until he relaxed, his hold loosening as he fell asleep with her arms around him and her body pulled tightly to his own. Slipping free, Rukia stood with her aching, pleasured body and stared down at the man who had changed her world. Smiling softly, tears glistening in her eyes, she leaned over the bed and kissed his forehead, his head tilted towards her. She lingered, her lips pressed against his forehead as twin tears burned down her cheeks. 

She pulled back and whispered the words buried deep inside of her soul. “I love you, fool.”

She gathered her scattered clothing and then she was gone. 

Fate wept for the broken souls left behind in a bond eternal.


End file.
